China-India border tension

ARTICLE: China and India Dispute Enclave on Edge of Tibet, By EDWARD WONG, New York Times, September 3, 2009

Old business, going back to the 1962 border clash, between China and India: a fight over a sacred Buddhist enclave located about 20 miles on the Indian side of the border.

The growing belligerence has soured relations between the two Asian giants and has prompted one Indian military leader to declare that China has replaced Pakistan as India's biggest threat.

Economic progress might be expected to bring the countries closer. China and India did $52 billion worth of trade last year, a 34 percent increase over 2007. But businesspeople say border tensions have infused business deals with official interference, damping the willingness of Chinese and Indian companies to invest in each other's countries.

Why it gets hard to think of China as a world power any time soon: they have such a long list of these past issues to work their way through, and it'll take years and years to clear the deck.

Comments

[Louis Heberlein]

I was one of guys loaded in US on a C-135 to help fly resources to India to help them in that 1962 incident. Then we were told to get off, go home, and wait for new instructions. We got them in the boss's kitchen. We were going to Florida to help deal with that became known as Cuban missile crisis.

That's a real concern over rational governments like India and/or China acting silly for domestic political and social support. It encourages real nut case guys in other countries to try to take advantage of the 'game crisis' to create a real one while Core nation leaders are distracted.

[James Patrick Miller]

Tom,

I agree that China has many, many things on their plate. Digesting all of these historic issues (Tibet, Taiwan, India, Japan) while sustaining economic growth sufficient enough to keep all of their domestic balls in the air is challenge enough for any government.

I do not agree that these many issues will prevent them from becoming a world power in the near term. If you look at that term simply as the ability to influence outcomes in world affairs, they meet this definition now. Look at the influence they have had since the economic meltdown last September. At the G-20 meeting in London last fall Gordon Brown himself marked the end of the "Washington Consensus".

You can argue that their swift, government directed, stimulus preventing a further drop off in the world economy. Imagine how bad things could have been if their growth dropped off the charts as ours, and most of the West, did. Whether we like it or not, they also hold considerable sway over us with the nearly two trillion in our securities they own. No doubt this joins us at the hip. But who leads, the debtor, or the lender?

China is certainly years away from going nose-to-nose with us militarily. But in the political, financial, economic, and technological arenas; they are punching above their GDP weight now. How big a military do they need in an asymetrical world? I think that is an open question.

I had an interesting conversation with Admiral Timothy Keating, Cdr. U.S. Pacific Command, a couple weeks ago. He said that we are trying to coax China into accepting a larger security role in the region. A role more fitting to their stature in the region.